Pranab Mukherjee ready for new challenge

Loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family seems to have stood Pranab Mukherjee in a good stead in the presidential race as the quintessential Congressman is set to occupy the Rashtrapati Bhavan capping a 45-year-long run in active politics.

Known for his razor sharp intellect and memory, Pranab was one of the trusted men of Indira Gandhi, even during the emergency, and has in the recent past been the Congress party’s chief crisis manager.

The only break in the loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family came when Mukherjee, after the assassination of Indira in 1984, was loud enough to say it was his time to become prime minister. That got him out of the Congress. It took some time before he came back into the party but once he was in, there was no stopping his rise. In 1991, PV Narasimha Rao made him deputy chairman of the Planning Commission. Since then, he has served as foreign minister, commerce minister, defence minister and finance minister.

Mukherjee is also called ‘GoM Mukherjee’ in political circles as he headed close to 33 Group of Ministers on various issues, including the one on Lokpal.

Expressing surprise over the Mukherjee’s constant rise that culminated in his nomination to the highest post in the country, a veteran Congress leader in West Bengal told DNA: “I have no idea how Pranab Babu could get back the dynasty’s faith in him after the 1984 miscalculation.”

With the next general elections widely expected to produce a fragmented House, Mukherjee will play a key role in deciding which party takes the lead in forming a new government. He could help the Nehru-Gandhi family keep its grip on power.

When his name first surfaced as a potential candidate for the presidency, a Congress spokeswoman said he was indispensable to the party. However, media reports suggested Sonia Gandhi was uneasy about installing a man in the presidential palace who was unlikely to prove as compliant as his predecessors.

A confidential cable from the US embassy in New Delhi to Washington in 2006, described Mukherjee as extremely ambitious; and said Sonia and other Congress leaders remain suspicious of him and do not want to provide him with an opportunity to push Manmohan Singh aside.

In fact, age has dimmed neither his ambitions nor his stamina. He wakes at 6am and does not go to bed until 2am. He eats dinner around 1.30am. Every night, he makes a new entry in his diary, just as he done for the past 50 years.

However, many people — both friends and foes — will likely be hoping that the jottings of a man who has never been far from the centre of power during his decades in politics stay unpublished.
The paradox of the astute politician’s career is that he was never a popular leader with people. Mukherjee was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1969 and was for a long time member of the Upper House before his first election to the Lok Sabha in 2004.

“He perhaps feels more at home in Delhi than in West Bengal,” said a Congress leader in Bengal. And now it seems, Mukherjee was right when he said he would look forward to big lawns of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Besides being a good watchman at the top with an hounourable retirement for 77-year-old politician, it also happens to be a gift for him who tolerated being ignored for prime ministership on occasions.

—Team DNA with inputs from agencies